"Platoon" (1986)

Rank on the AFI List: #86

WHAT I ALREADY KNEW ABOUT THE MOVIE:
Only 2 things:
1) It starred Charlie Sheen
2) It's about the Vietnam War

LET ME EXPLAIN...
This is the third "Vietnam" movie I have seen. The first one being "We Were Soldiers" (decent, but it felt more like a Mel Gibson movie than a Vietnam War movie), and "Apocalypse Now", which I would categorize not so much as a Vietnam movie (though it does convey the horrors of it very well), but more of a horror story set in the Vietnam War (if that makes sense). "Platoon", in my opinion, has been the best example of showing what fighting in the Vietnam War was like.

Being too young to have lived through Vietnam, I've always been a little confused about why we were there, though I keep getting the feeling most people were confused why we were there while we were there. This film did nothing to make me think otherwise. In fact, if I had to describe "Platoon" in two words, it would be TOTAL AMBIGUITY... What are we doing here? Who's really in charge here? Who are the real bad guys? At a confusing time in American history, this movie does an excellent job of illustrating how confusing being in the war must have been.

Another quick note on the overall story: the tagline for the film is "The first casualty of war is innocence." This is spot on in "Platoon", and Charlie Sheen's character is the perfect illustration of that.

What makes this a "Top 100" Movie?
When I think of what movie probably conveys World War 2 the best, "Saving Private Ryan" immediately comes to mind.  And now when I think of what movie probably conveys the Vietnam War the best, I'll think of "Platoon".  It's a very well done film about a significant war in American history.  It was also nominated for 8 Academy Awards, winning 4 of them, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Not really a complaint, but...
At first I was disappointed at the lack of back-story for practically every character in the movie. You only get tiny hints of where guys came from and what they did back home, but then I realized that that's something that made the movie better. Why? Well, this movie was very realistic, and it puts the audience in the situation of being a brand new soldier who's thrown into the hell of Vietnam. Just like a new soldier, you don't know the other guys, and you don't know their back-stories. That's more realistic than getting told through flashbacks or heavy monologues why some guys are the way they are. It also added to the ambiguity of the movie because you couldn't truly know what some guys were capable of.

LET ME SUM UP...
"Platoon" was captivating (the 2 hours went by really fast), it was hard to watch, it was sickening, and it was realistic. I was really glad I finally saw it, but I didn't feel like I wanted to ever watch it again. However, it seems like the best illustration on what the Vietnam War was probably like; it was well acted (Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe were both nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and Charlie Sheen did an excellent job in his transformation from "innocent" to "corrupted by war"); and all that together makes me say this is definitely a film to watch at least once in your life.

MY RATING: 8.5/10

TOTAL # OF FILMS WATCHED: 55